In and Out of Context Blacksburg's "Roots"

Since much of this issue of CONTEXT is being devoted to Virginia Tech's hometown of Blacksburg, it seems
appropriate here to give some historical background about the town, now the state's largest "non-city." Predating
formation of the town itself was an early frontier settlement, founded by James Patton around 1748 and called Draper’s
Meadow after a family living there (in the area near the present day University Duck Pond). Patton and a nephew,
William B. Preston, carried military supplies to Draper’s Meadow in July 1755 to defend to settlement, but while they
were there some Shawnee Indians perpetrated a terrible surprise massacre, killing Patton and most of the
10 families of settlers. Preston escaped however, and in 1772 acquired much of his uncle’s lands, including Draper's
Meadow and acreage to the west and southwest. On this land he built a plantation house, surrounded it by a stockade,
and moved his family there in 1774. Preston named the plantation "Smithfield," in honor of his wife, Susannah Smith
Preston. Preston died in 1823. After Susannah died, her son James Patton Preston (later Governor of Virginia)
inherited the estate. In 1843, after James’s death, the land was divided into three estates-"Smithfield,"
"Solitude," and "Whitethorn"--inherited by his sons, William Ballard, Robert T., and Francis Preston, respectively.
The three estate houses still exist today, although somewhat altered. "Smithfield" was restored from a dilapidated
condition by the Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities in the 1960s, was designated a State
Historic Landmark in 1969, and is now open to the public from March to November or by appointment. "Whitethorn" was
completed in 1857 and acquired by Stockton Heth in 1892; members of the Heth family still occupy the house at 200
Monticello Lane in the new Hethwood residential subdivision. "Solitude" house was built in 1859 and still stands
near the University Duck Pond. This house, 250 acres of land, and several farm building on the estate were purchased
from Robert T. Preston at $85 per acre by the first Board of Visitors (of Virginia Agricultural and Mechanical
College) in October, 1872, and became part of the college property. "Solitude" is now the oldest structure still
standing on the Virginia Tech Campus and has been used for a variety of activities down through the years. About the
same time "Smithfield" plantation was begun, two brothers, John and William Black, came to the area, each with a
claim to 700 acres of land lying at the headwaters of Strouble’s Creek, slightly to the northeast of Preston's
estate. As the number of settler’s grew in the community, William Black decided that it would be advisable to lay
out and establish a town; and this he did by dedicating about 39 acres of his land for that purpose in 1793. Four
years later Black petitioned the Virginia legislature to authorize the establishment of Blacksburg as an
un-incorporated town. His petition read, in part: "...your petitioner having in piece of ground, in healthy climate,
furtile [sic] neighborhood, with excellent springs thereon, agreeably & well situated for a small town, did at the
request of a number of his friends & neighbors, lay off thirty-eight acres three quarters of an acre & twenty five
poles of the same into lotts [sic] & streets, & disposed of a number of the sd [sic] lotts [sic], the purchaser of
which, hath built & are now building several houses thereon."

The General Assembly approved Black’s petition on Jan. 13, 1798, and on Aug. 4, 1798, he signed over a deed to
seven trustees for the town, one of whom was James Patton Preston. The trustees then sold lots to 26 people, some of
whose surnames are still familiar in the area (e.g., Price, Barger, Argabrite, Croy, Rutledge, Stanger, Peterman).
Only two of the original street names are still in existence--Main and Roanoke. The original town was laid off into
16 blocks, bound by what are now Draper Rd. (then Water St.) on the southwest, Jackson on the northwest, Wharton on
the northeast, and Clay on the southeast. Each block originally contained four lots. Lot owners were required to
build a house not less than 70 feet square, "fit to reside in with a brick or stone chimney."0 IF this were not
accomplished from 2-5 years, the title to the land ceased. The earliest dwellings were log construction for the
most part. The town also soon could claim a meeting house, general merchandise store, blacksmith, tannery, and
tavern. William Black, the town's founder, moved to Albemarle County two years later. Harvey Black, a descendant of
William's brother, John, would later become first rector of the V.A.M.C. Board of Visitors.

The town of Blacksburg grew slowly, but steadily over the next three-quarters of a century. Although there were
crudely constructed log churches early in the town's history, the Presbyterians built a church of brick on Main St.
in 1847. This building, the oldest structure still standing on Main St., is now the "117 South Main" bar, grill and
night club; the original deacons and elders must be tossing in their graves! Not to be outdone, the Methodists, led
by Col. Robert Preston, declared that "the Methodists should build a church wider than the Presbyterian Church and
higher than the Presbyterian Church"; this bit of one-upmanship was accomplished when the Methodist's new church was
completed on Church St. It was torn down in 1905 to make room for the even larger Whisner Memorial Methodist Church
building which still stands today as an annex to the present, newer church. The oldest church building in continuous
use in Blacksburg is the Christ Episcopal Church, built in 1875.

Blacksburg's Methodist leaders were responsible in the 1850s for establishing what would become the forerunner to
the state's first land grant college, when a "seminary of learning" was opened "for the instruction of [male] youth
in the various branches of science and literature, and the useful arts, and the learned and foreign languages." This
school, named the Olin and Preston Institute (after Rev. Stephen Olin, a distinguished Methodist educator, and
William Ballard Preston, owner of "Smithfield"), opened in 1855. This building (destroyed by fire in 1913) was
located on a hillside, facing southeast down Main St. at a point through which Main St. is now four-laned between
College Ave. and the Mall entrance to the University. The school soon went heavily into debt and was sold in 1859 to
settle a claim against it. The new owner, John N. Lyle, agreed to let the school's trustees continue operations, but
the Civil War forced the school to close. Following the war, Lyle's executor -- Lyle had died in the interim -- sold
the school to a new board of trustees which reopened it with collegiate standing under the name, Preston and Olin
Institute. While debates raged between various factions in the state legislature as to where Virginia would
establish its proposed land - grant college for agriculture and the mechanic arts, the Preston and Olin trustees also
decided to enter the competition for the Morrill Land Grant funds. State Senator John E. Penn suggested in the
debates that the Montgomery County citizens might be able to contribute $20,000 if the funds went to the school in
Blacksburg, and with this inducement, the Senate decided to accept the offer. The House of Delegates followed suit
the following day, March 14, 1872. Montgomery County citizens went to the polls in May and voted to issue the
necessary bonds to appropriate the promised money. Virginia Agricultural and Mechanical College, now Virginia Tech,
opened its doors for the first time in the old Preston and Olin building on Oct. 1, 1872. It was would later become
the state's largest institution of higher learning and have a profound influence on the growth and demographic makeup
of Blacksburg and the surrounding area. Following the opening of the state's land grant college, the town began to
grow more rapidly. Blacksburg was incorporated by the General Assembly in 1871, the year before V.A.M.C. was
established. A Blacksburg business directory in 1877 listed two each dry goods stores, hotels or inns, jewelers,
painters, tailors, and carriage makers; and one each general merchandise store, cabinet maker, attorney, dentist,
photographer, milliner, tanner, carpenter, contractor, blacksmith, bank, drugstore, hardware store, boot and shoe
shop, and stirrup shop. The short-lived BLACKSBURG POST in 1896 said that the town had eight good stores on Main St.,
a barber shop, two doctors, and "oysters in season." The town got its first telegraph service in 1874 ( over a
line built by some college students from Blacksburg to Chrisitiansburg ); first electric light service in 1891
(started by the college power plant in 1890 and later extended in to town) ; its first telephone (in President John
M. McByrde’s office ) in 1898; its first rail service (via the Virginia Anthracite Coal & Railway Co. ) and first
hard surfaced road ( a macadamized road to Christiansburg ) in 1904; and its first movie house in 1909 (the original
Lyric Theatre.) Both the college and the town received water supplies from local springs and wells until 1957, when
the Blacksburg-Christiansburg-VPI Water Authority inaugurated its system of bringing water from the New River.

Blacksburg's population in 1924 was 1,110; in 1940, it was 2,133; in 1950, 3,352, in 1960 about 7,000; and in 1973
jumped from about 12,00 to approximately 24,000 when the town annexed the Virginia Tech campus and upped its area from
about to more than 18 square miles. The current population estimate is about 32,000 with 40,000 seen by 1980.

Blacksburg's weather has always been a topic of conversation, and this winter's weather has been among the worst
since records began in 1893. While January, 1977, will go down in the record books as having the coldest mean
temperature of any month on record so far, the lowest temperature ever recorded for Blacksburg was a minus-27 degrees
on Dec. 30, 1917. The winter of 1917-18 recorded 59 inches of snow, too, but the winter of 1959-60 was the all-time
worst in that category with a total snowfall of 79.57 inches.